Specifying How Yum Downloads Updates

[Bob Gustafson]

On Wed, 2009-04-15 at 01:14 -0400, Seth Vidal wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 15 Apr 2009, Bob Gustafson wrote:
> 
> >
> > Ahh, but with yum, you must be very careful when deleting/removing a
> > component, because of all the dependencies that get ripped out too.
> 
> Umm, no.
> 
> When you remove a package, the things which depend on it will be removed, 
> yes. That's how package dependencies work in EVERY PACKAGE MANAGER.
> 
> You'll also note that unless you tell it otherwise yum always asks 
> the user to confirm what they have asked to do.
> 
> 
> > This is because you did not include a usage count for each component.
> 
> What on earth are you talking about? A usage count? Do you understand how 
> dependencies work?
> 
> PkgX requires PkgY - both are installed
> 
> if I remove PkgY from my system then to maintain consistency I must remove 
> PkgX, too.
> 
> If there are pkgs that depend on pkgX then I must mark them to be removed, 
> too.
> 
> What is the situation that you are seeing where yum is:
> 
> 1. removing things it is not ASKED to remove?

Bug #215621 ("LOTS of dependencies ERASED")

> 2. removing things without the explicit consent of the user?

The problem with the current status of Yum is that the user does not
have enough information to know whether a dependency removal is OK.

Also, at least a couple of years ago, if the user did not make a
decision within a certain number of seconds, the components were erased.

> 
> -sv
>